Fear and Politics

To talk of Australians and fear in one breath might seem a contradiction. A defining element of our vision of ourselves is of a resilient and fearness bunch of iconoclasts who could never be stampeded into frightened submission. But Dr Carmen Lawrence argues that fear has been a crucial factor in shaping Australian public policy in recent years, and in Fear and Public Policy she charts its consequences in the body politic. She discusses how xenophobia has shaped policies toward refugees, Indigenous Australians, and Islamic funcamentalists, and examines the effects of being contantly warned about the risk of terrorism. She also looks at the sustained campaigns on law and order, and the exaggerated anxieties people now have of the risks of assault, murder, child abuse, and robbery. Dr Lawrence argues that fear can never provide a foundation of moral and political argument, and that the necessary antidote to the toxin of fear is a wholehearted embrace of the priciples of freedom, equaity and co-operation. Human bettermen must again be the prime focus of politics - for all our sakes.